Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-15
CHINESE SLAVERY
Maintained and Enforced by American
Courts and Their Officers

Maintained and Enforced by American
Courts and Their Officers.
The case of Lin Ting comes up for
preliminary examination in Justice Posts
Court this morning. This Is another of
the familiar and disgraceful cases brought
for enforcement of the enslavement of
Chinese women for the vilest of purposes,
but is brought in a slightly modified form,
with view to make the suit more certain
in its results, and to avoid, if possible, the
righteous condemnation and execration of
outraged public sentiment. The woman in
question is good-looking and modest-ap-
pearing girl of about 20 years. She was made
the victim some time since of one of those
Celestial marriages" by which a worth
less heather gambler and opium smoker
obtained control of her under the name of
wife, by being married under the American
form of law. He at once placed her, in
company with two other Chinese women
whom he controlled, in an I-street den,
and took the earnings of their shame as a
personal gambling fund and to maintain
his worthless carcass. Finally he wanted
more money than he could collect from
the fruits of his den, and he concluded to
sell his wife to a party in Virginia City,
and was about to carry out such an ar
rangement when his wife, so-called, know
ing his purpose, in some manner induced
him to go with her to San Francisco. As
soon as she was in that city, and under
cover of darkness. she left her detestable
master and found her way to the Christian
Home for Chinese Women, and asked to
be accepted as an inmate. This was on
the first day of the present month.
A few days since he ascertained her
whereabouts, and coming to Sacramento
arranged, with experienced legal help, the
details CT plot by which to get her
brought back to Sacramento and to gain
possession of his chattel. For this pur-
pose the American liberty-loving Courts
can always be depended upon, and, as in
the time of our Southern slavery days, the
law officers of the State responded with
alacrity to help the paid attorneys of the
slave-hunters. In the present instance,
the case is arranged and put
up in this manner: The charge
states that the slave was furnished
with certain bracelets and jewelry to wear
on the occasion of the annual ancestral
worship day-March 31st-and that she
ran away to San Francisco and sold the
trinkets; that the jewelry was worth $50,
and that therefore she is guilty of grand
larceny. The plot of making the value
sufficient to constitute a State Prison
offense is probably with view to more
easily frighten the woman to submit her
self again to the nefarious possession of
the miserable opium smoking slave master.
1t is fact known to every one that all an
attorney for the slave-owners in these cases
has to do to prove his case is to tell the one
who claims to own the woman what testi-
mony is needed, and how many witnesses are
required to swear to it, and the testimony
is Immediately forthcoming. 1t is not
creditable to the Courts of country which
has abolished slavery among its own peo-
pie, and barred against it by a consIitu-
tional amendment, that they will accept
such perjured statements as are known to
be given in these cases and to permit the
forms of administering Justice" (?) to
rivet the chains of system OF slavery, be-
side which our slavery of former days was
an electric light of purity and righteous
ness.
But let there be no thought of question
as to the way in which the charges will be
sustained in this case. There will be lust
as large an array of opium smoking China
men present as witnessess-and who will
swear to the testimony required to make
the case solid "-as previous estimate of
numbers and their arrangement shall be
deemed necessary for the occasion. The
testimony will probably be- First, wit
nesses to prove the jewelry was loaned TO
her; others who saw her have it on
and then, 10 cap the climax and make
it entirely conclusive, the attorney for
the owner of the chattel will
have heathens here from San Fran
cisco, who will swear that they saw
her sell the jewelry, and rest assured that
one or more opium picked heathens will
be found who will swear on a stack of
Bibles-which on all other occasions are
used only for kindling wood-that they
bought the jewelry from her. Thus, if the
Court accepts the testimony" which will
be ready at the attorneys fingers end, a
plausible case will be made out against
Lin Ting, and in due process of time
if money and chicane and perjury will
serve their purpose, this hunted-down
chattel, who has fled from the infamous
den of her heather slave master, will
through the process of the Courts of justice
and the hired services of attorneys who
boast of citizenship in free, liberty loving
America, be returned to the damnable
possession of the human monster who
claims her as his property, and that for the
vilest and most revolving purposes.